Dipsea notebook: A two-time winner before her 11th birthday, McGowan fell off the map until now

Megan McGowan, the girl who captivated Marin by winning the Dipsea Race at ages 9 and 10, was not actually lost.

There were no missing person posters, no photos on milk cartons, no computer-generated aging images in tax booklets. Nonetheless, the running community searching for Megan — for the 100th anniversary of the Dipsea in 2005, the 100th running of the race in 2010, for the Dipsea Hall of Fame — could not find her. But a lucky click on yet another Google search has resolved the mystery. Megan, who changed names to Kaltinger, then McGuire and is now Megan Sawyer, is a happily married mother of two, living in Kansas.

Though burdened with a birthday in May — young Dipsea contenders born just AFTER the June race gain extra head start minutes — her brief Dipsea career is among the brightest.

In 1989, her stepfather and coach, Michael McGowan, began driving 7-year-old Megan 800 miles roundtrip from Southern California to train on the Dipsea course. She ran in the Runner Section, easily qualifying for Invitational status. A year later, as a 60-pound, second grader, Megan led the entire race, by as much as six minutes atop Cardiac. But the peerless Sal Vasquez caught her a half-mile from the finish. Her time was 1 hour, 9 minutes.

In 1991, Megan lost two handicap minutes but improved to 1:05:32 to best Hall of Famers Eve Pell, Mike McManus and Vasquez for the win. In '92, Megan lost four more head start minutes — down to 16 — and was written off by local pundits. She proved them wrong by running 58:09, not only winning the race by more than a minute but also the Women's Best Time Trophy, at age 10. It remains one of the most astonishing performances in Dipsea history.

In '93, Megan turned in another still-standing age-record, 59:13, missing the Best Time award by just a single second. But with her handicap slashed four additional minutes, she finished fourth. She has never returned.

"I was a happy kid," Megan said of those Dipsea years, which also yielded several national age road records. "Running was really fun. I was winning all the time. I was beating adults. I was winning a gazillion trophies."

A growth spurt — six inches in 10 months — and overtraining led to the debilitating knee ailment known as Osgood-Schlatter disease. She came back to run in high school, but no longer at a national class level. Still, she impressed the coach at the U.S. Military Academy.

Megan applied, never expecting to get in; West Point's acceptance rate is among the lowest of any college and she had been rejected by UC Santa Barbara. But she was admitted. (I wrote one of her letters of recommendation.)

"West Point is not an easy place to be," Megan said. "I was busy keeping up academically and running stopped being fun. I realized I wanted to pursue an advanced degree rather than serve five years in the military."

It was also a tough time at home. Her mother (Kathy) left Michael, and Megan split permanently from him as well, taking her mother's name (Kaltinger). And her natural father died. Megan dropped out of West Point in her sophomore year.

An old friendship with then U.S. mile record holder Steve Scott led her to Cal State San Marcos, where he coached. Again she ran, again without passion.

"One day, I just told myself that I'm done with racing," she said. "At once, I felt a great weight lifted from my shoulders."

Megan, now 31, has not been in a single race since, though she still runs and plans to enter a brutal obstacle race, the Tough Mudder, this fall.

A marriage to another West Pointer stationed in Kansas did not last. But Megan stayed to study at Kansas State University and now works at the KSU Biosecurity Research Institute. She and husband Aaron Sawyer live in Manhattan, home of the university, with daughters, Adalynn, 3, and Harlow, who just turned 1.

"Megan takes initiative to learn new things on her own and always strives to do the best job possible," said Julie Johnson, Megan's supervisor. "She's the only person I know with a master's degree in microbiology who's also crazy/ambitious enough to train and compete in the Tough Mudder."

"My wife is self motivated, strong and driven, whether at home, with her career, or training for a future race," Sawyer said. "She is also a loving mother and wife; wanting nothing more than to enjoy the time we have together as a family. I can only imagine what our daughters will achieve in life with their mother nurturing and guiding them toward their hopes and dreams."

"I definitely want to return to the Dipsea," Megan said. "No one would recognize my last name so if I run really slow it wouldn't matter."

Hans Roenau dies

Hans Roenau, one of the leading figures in Marin running for the past half-century, died this weekend at age 84. Roenau fled his native Austria, when the Nazis arrived, for Shanghai, one of the few places in the world accepting Jews without visas. When the Chinese expelled foreigners in the 1950s, Roenau came to the United States. A runner in his youth, Hans became part of Marin's small distance community before the "running boom." He was a co-founder of the Saturday runs out of Mountain Home, near his home high on Mt. Tamalpais. He won five Dipsea Race black shirts between 1977 and 1987, with a best of sixth place in 1978. He broke two hours, fifty minutes in the marathon while in his 50s. In his last years, slowed by injury and age, Hans photographed races.

Barry Spitz is the author of 'Dipsea: The Greatest Race.' Email him at bzspitz@aol.com.